Obama unlikely to get decisive lead in democratic race

AGENCIESFeb 5, 2008, 01.37am IST

WASHINGTON: Republican John McCain has a chance to secure his party's presidential nomination on Super Tuesday, the biggest set of same-day primaries in the US history. Either Hillary Clinton or Barack Obama may gain a slight edge in a Democratic fight that's likely to continue into March.

Contests in two dozen states have the candidates zigzagging from California to Missouri to Georgia. About half the convention delegates who will select the presidential nominees will be chosen on Tuesday.

"We may well see McCain effectively wrap up the nomination" thanks to Republicans' preference for winner-take-all contests, says Charlie Cook, publisher of the nonpartisan Cook Political Report in Washington. Democrats' fondness for awarding delegates based on proportional shares of the popular vote makes for a "less explosive, more slow accrual", he says. So far, McCain has secured 98 delegates and Mitt Romney, the former Massachusetts governor has 59, according to The Green Papers, a nonpartisan website that tracks delegate counts. Nomination will require 1,191 delegates.

McCain, 71, is favoured over Romney in five winner-take-all prizes — New York, Connecticut, New Jersey, Arizona and Delaware — that will give the Arizona senator more than 250 delegates. Buoyed by the endorsement of California governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, McCain may pick up many of that state's 173 delegates as well.

The result: by Wednesday morning, McCain is likely to have accumulated more than half the delegates needed for nomination, and will be far ahead of Romney and former Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee. Clinton and Obama, meanwhile, are bracing for trench warfare as they try to pick off delegates by swooping down on targeted congressional districts within states. Clinton is favoured in many of the larger primaries such as New York, New Jersey and California.

"It is clear given the proportional allocation of delegates that this will be a very protracted race," says Chris Lehane, a Democratic consultant in California. The Democrats have an advantage in enthusiasm, Lehane says: "Democratic voters are clearly as engaged, as energised and as excited as I have seen them." Turnout among Democrats for the January 3 Iowa caucuses was more than double that of Republicans. In New Hampshire, 20% more Democrats turned out.

Clinton and Obama are statistically tied for voter support nationwide, according to new polls by Washington Post/ABC News and a USA Today/Gallup. The Washington Post/ABC News poll found Clinton had 47% support among likely Democratic voters and Obama had 43%, within the poll's 4-point margin of error. The USA Today/Gallup poll had Clinton with 45% support and Obama with 44%. That poll had a margin of error of plus or minus 3 percentage points. In Nevada, three of four voters who participated in a caucus chose a Democrat over a Republican, according to figures compiled by the Democratic National Committee.

In the Democratic primary in South Carolina, a state that hasn't voted for the Democrat in a general election in three decades, turnout rose by 82%, topping the Republican tally a week earlier by 100,000 voters. The heightened interest among Democrats is also showing up in fund-raising. In 2007, Clinton and Obama brought in more than twice the amount collected by McCain and Romney.

McCain, who had difficulty raising funds before his January 8 victory in New Hampshire, says money is now coming in "rather well". He took in more than $7 million in the first three weeks of the year, his campaign said. But Obama raised more than $32 million last month.